With The Sureness Of A Sleepwalker
by Maghilana
Summary: Solas visits Inquisitor Lavellan in her dreams months after they saw each other for the last time. (After Trespasser; contains massive Spoilers for DA:I and the DLC)


Sometimes I woke up to this memory. It was a shitty one, but it became the most surreal as soon as I got to know who Solas really was. Us, standing in front of the Fen'Harel statue at the Temple of Mythal and Morrigan explaining his motives, his intentions and Solas, of course, indirectly speaking up for, well, himself. And all I said was that the Dalish had statues of him, too. I'm smart. I see people for who they are. I'm not easily fooled, not at all. But then again, he did not fool me. His feelings were genuine, he said that, and I know that was true. He admired my open-mindedness and I would still have been opend-minded if he would have told me what he was up to at some point. More than that, I completely understood him. I felt _it_. I symphatized with it.

This morning, Grey wasn't enough to describe the sky, which reflected the transition from one season to another. The summer was the present, the present that was slowly fading away and the fall was the future, which wasn't actually here yet, but I could sense it coming like the snow in the air. But this Grey, it was more than a journey through time. It was the color which had already been the first thing to announce the cold months in many centuries, it was even a little darker in the same places as it was thousand years ago. Nothing had changed. It was just the same sky, cracking up once again, the same sky with the same immortal ravens, flying their well-known patterns into the clouds. The subtle, icy smell that was adding to the scenery came from nowhere. It was emerging from the observer's consciousness, whose spirit was just automatically adding everything that was missing. Scents had always been the one and only sensory perception that was truly incomprehensible, uncatchable. You couldn't just put them on paper like the sunset that tasted like strawberries and you couldn't imitate them like the growling thunder by hitting empty metal bucks. They were absurd, like love, which was also just an addition made by someone's spirit to complement the indefinable incompleteness of life.

I was a mess. At first, I ignored his abscence. I didn't let people see what it did to me. I was drowning in distraction and I put as much weight on my shoulders as I could so that I wouldn't feel the weight that was missing in my heart. It hurt. Physically. Sometimes, people actually die after they got their hearts broken. I thought that was going to happen to me. I didn't feel like I wanted to die, but I sure as hell didn't feel alive either.

Love. Love had always been a mystery to me. I had my share of relationships that would fit the definition, but not _my_ definition. To me love was more, different. I always knew that I had not yet met someone who could really occupy a place in my mind or, well, heart. In fact, I never understood what people meant by _heartbroken _or why they used the heart as a symbol for their feelings. Now I did. Because Solas shattered mine into pieces and he did it gently, so gently, which made it even more painful. It was like he kissed me all over with his soft, frozen lips while he was ripping out my guts. And in some way, it even felt good. I knew that I'd rather be violated by him than be herded by anyone else. So as much as I suffered, I took a weird pleasure from carrying the fragments of my muscular organ with me like they were an ill infant I wasn't sure I'd keep.

The last few days, distraction didn't work for me anymore. I couldn't sleep _and_ I slept all the time. Solas showed up in my dreams. It had happened before, but not that frequently. Now, he haunted me every night. I still wasn't able to assuredly distinguish the actual dreams from encounters in the fade – or however he managed to infiltrate my subconciousness. Be that as it may, I intuitively knew a lot of it was real. Today, all doubts were defeated. With the sureness of a sleepwalker, I wandered around in the deep ways of my own mind, discerning that he was already there. Maybe he always had been, every night. Maybe he just stayed hidden once in a blue moon. But I remembered vividly: tonight he gave up his lair. Solas came right up to me, dipping the surroundings into a dim light of insignificance. „Vhenan." His voice echoed on the walls of my bedchamber as well as on the walls of my soul. I realized I was naked because I also was in the physical world. I started to sleep without any clothes on because it would make me feel closer to _him. _Now that he left his hideout in full, the worlds were coalescing wherefore my mind didn't dress me up anymore. „Solas." I said his name as if I needed to clarify his presence to myself once more. It didn't work. Or it worked too well. I broke down on the imaginary floor and started crying, the hole in my heart became black matter, desperately trying to absorb Solas and not caring about the fact it would suck me down with him. He made a few small steps towards me but he still seemed so far away. My concept of distances was gone. Eventually, he sat down next to me on the ground, without looking at me or touching me for the time being. I followed his suit. Silence filled the room und pushed to my lungs. I heard him breathing and it was the most beautiful thing I heard in months. _He was here._ I let out a deep sob, which seemed to segregate into many rainbow-colored particles and the particles settled on the silence. He moved closer to me. I felt the seemingly absurd heat of his arctic skin and my heartbeat was so firm that it felt like we were sitting in a throbbing chamber. He grabbed my wrist and said „I am tired of this visits." His voice was calm, but soaked with subtle despair. He pulled my hand to his face, close enough to his mouth for me to feel his breath, but not close enough to feel his lips.

„I can feel your pulse, vhenan. This is not your authentic physical presence but still, the rhythm is just exactly the same. There are so many realities, but there is only one truth. You are my truth and I need to see you in what most people refer to as the _real world_. I need what you are to me."

„Solas …"

„I need _you_."

I dared to look him in the face for the first time. He was tied up in knots and tried to resist the temptation to do the same, but I had enough of his _Permafrost_. I just grabbed his head and kissed him which he was not prepared for. He hesitated, but not for long. When he eventually gave in, a deep groan escaped him and his entire body tension seemed to come of.

„I love you, my heart" he moaned in pain and pulled me as close to him as he possibly could.

I buried my head in his stony chest and he would not stop stroking my hair and my back and kissing my forehead again and again. In some moments he seemed to laugh a little while he was swallowing his tears, before he even cried.

I wanted to say something, but he stopped me.

„Shh!" He wrapped his arms around me.

„I am already on my way."

I heard his words, snuggled more into him and fell asleep even though I already was.


End file.
